


In Midnights and Cups Of Coffee

by Indigo_Penstrokes



Category: Newsies - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, this is my overdue fic for girlsies week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-25 13:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14379828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indigo_Penstrokes/pseuds/Indigo_Penstrokes
Summary: Joey and Rafaela are roomates, both with a knack for procrastinating and spending more nights trying to fight their insomnia than not. If they can survive the semester it'll be a miracle, and if they find something more along the way it wouldn't be a bad thing.





	In Midnights and Cups Of Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this come from a lyric in Seasons of Love from Rent. This is also way overdue for girlsies week, but at least it's finished.  
> Enjoy!

The clock clicks past 2:30 am and both girls are still awake, textbooks and papers spread out around the room. Not to mention the mugs of coffee that have been left to cool on top of desks and stacks of books. 

Joey shuts her laptop, rubbing a hand over her face, “One paper done, now a physics test to study for.” 

Rafaela keeps typing, she's still a page and a half away from the minimum page count for her lit paper. “Not all of us are that lucky.” 

Joey just laughs as she pulls a book and her notes into her lap. The quiet settles over them once again, the gentle hum of the laptops and the vents being the only sounds. 

“Why did I take this class? I'm an art major, I don't even need to know this.” Rafaela pushes her glasses up onto her head, her eyes strained from staring at the bright screen for too long. 

“Come here,” Joey says, holding out her arms. 

“What?” Rafaela’s heart speeds up the smallest bit. 

“Come here, hugs make everything better.” Joey waves her arms in a get a moving gesture. 

Grumbling about having work to do Rafaela gets up and goes across the room to where Joey’s sitting on her bed. She climbs into her open arms, snuggling into the warmth and comfort of her best friend. It’s the most safe and happy she’s felt in a long time, probably too long if she’s being honest with herself. She presses herself a little closer to Joey, letting the smell of her shampoo soothe her into something resembling sleep.

“I need to finish my paper,” She mumbles, too tired to pick her head up from where it’s resting in the crook of Joey’s neck.

“I’ll finish it for you in the morning, but for now you need to sleep.” Joey rubs a hand up and down her back before hooking an arm around Rafaela’s legs and picking her up. 

Rafaela lets out a yelp at the sudden change of position, but before she can protest Joey sets her back down onto her own bed. Then to Rafaela’s surprise Joey sits next to her, pulling her closer. She must make some kind of face because Joey asks if everything is okay. 

“Yeah, just, tired?” It’s partially true, she is more tired than she’s been in a while, but its not the whole truth. The truth that Rafaela isn’t totally sure about herself yet, but that’s for figuring out later when she doesn’t have an amazing roommate who is willing to cuddle with her so they can both sleep.

“Okay, just try to get some sleep.” Joey pulls a soft, well used blanket over the both of them. “Goodnight Raf.” 

“Goodnight Jo.” And with the Joey turns off the lamp and the room is doused in darkness and moonlight. 

Rafaela’s eyes droop closed as she gets lost in the warmth and steady breathing of the girl beside her. And it’s the first time she sleeps well in almost two months.

\---

Before they know it, the end of October has rolled around and they both have too many things to study for and too many papers due and they’ve drank way too much coffee. But that’s college for you.

“Raf why do I want to be a physicist? Just why?” Joey has her face planted in her open calculus book, the same book she’s been working in for the past two hours. 

“Because you’re good at it dumbass.” Rafaela throws a crumpled up paper at her, it’s another failed attempt at the drawing that she needs to have done by the end of the semester. It has to be a single continuous line that shows a significant point in the artist's life. And so far Rafaela has been stumped as to what to draw, nothing feels right yet.

“Yeah sure.” She lifts her head up to glare at her roommate, “Can you grab me my coffee?” 

Rafaela rolls her eyes, “Yes babe.” 

“Thank you dear.” Joey’s not sure when the pet names started, but she’s not complaining about the way her heart swoops whenever Rafaela uses one. 

When Rafaela comes back from their mini kitchen, if you can even call it that, she has a mug of now lukewarm coffee and a probably stale cookie from when Jojo was last over the previous week. She sets the mug on the precarious stack of notes next to Joey’s bed. But instead of going back to her desk and her drawings she plops herself down in Joey’s lap like a cat in need of attention. 

“As much as I love you, what are you doing?” 

“Making you take a break since neither of us are getting anything done, what else?” She looks up at Joey with big brown eyes, a look of pure innocence on her face. 

“Sure,” Joey says skeptically raising an eyebrow, “Are you sure your not just putting off the work you still have to do?” 

Rafaela scoffs, hand flying up to her chest, “I would never do such a thing.”

Joey just laughs, shifting a bit so Raf can be more comfortable from her position across her lap. “Comfy?” 

Rafaela closes her eyes, “Very.” 

Once Joey’s sure her friend is asleep, or at least faking really really well, she runs a hand through her hair, smoothing out the place where her bangs have gotten pushed to one side. She sighs, Rafaela is never this relaxed when she’s awake. Always rushing to do something, or to meet a deadline she forgot about, even when they’re just awake because sometimes sleeping is impossible without talking each other into exhaustion. It’s times like this, where Joey can get Raf to sleep, that make the heartache worth every second. 

Eventually she puts her books away and adjusts to a more comfortable position the best she can without disturbing the sleeping girl. Shutting the lamp off she looks down at Raf’s sleeping form once more before she drifts off into her own sea of dreams.“Sleep well, I love you.”

\---

By the time it’s late November Rafaela still doesn’t have her final project done, and it’s due in a week. So to say she’s stressing would be an enormous understatement. She’s been pacing the small dorm room for almost an hour and a half, just trying to come up with something that was a significant moment of her life that she could capture on paper.

“I don’t know what to do Joey, tell me what to do.” Raf whines as she stops pacing for a moment. 

Joey sighs, “Raf it's been almost two hours, you just need to take a break.”

Unceremoniously she flops onto her own bed, “I’m going to fail this stupid class because I can’t do the one thing I’m majoring in. This is fantastic.” 

“Don’t think like that, you’ll get something done and I’m sure you won’t fail.” Joey walks over to stand next to where Raf is sprawled out across her unmade bed. “I’m serious.” 

Rafaela just snorts, not looking at Joey. 

“Well if you’re going to be like that you leave me one option.” This gets her to look up. 

“Don’t you dare-” But it’s too late and Joey already has her fingers poking and prodding Raf’s sides. Smiling as she tries to suppress the giggles and snorts that are trying to force their way out. 

“Joey, stop it-” another bout of laughter escape from Raf, and Joey just smiles widers as she continues the onslaught of tickling. 

“Stop what?” This earns her a slight kick to the side, but she doesn't stop. 

“Ass-” Rafaela doesn't get to finish before a shriek cuts her off when Joey finds the sweet spot on her ribs. She keeps going until Rafaela is red and has tears streaming down her face from laughing so hard. 

“Are you done now?” Raf asks out of breath, but smiling widely, her arms clamped down around her middle. 

“Yeah,” Joey breathes out, realizing just how close she is to Rafaela. Her arms are bracketing Raf’s shoulders, their faces are so close she can see the barely there freckles on Rafaela's nose. 

She's been staring too long, but she can't stop, she's never going to get a chance like this again. So she takes a deep breath and asks quietly, “Can I kiss you?” 

Rafaela's eyes go wide for a split second before she nods and brings a hand up to her face, running her thumb across her cheekbone. “I would like that.” 

Without further prompting Joey dips her head down, capturing Rafaela's lips with her own in a sugar sweet kiss. It's almost too perfect, too fairytale, this can't actually be them. But it is, and when Rafaela brings her other hand up to cup the back of her neck Joey knows it's all real. She's finally kissing the girl she's been slowly falling for, and it's even more than she could have wished for. 

Raf is the first to pull away for air, “That was. Wow.” 

“Yeah.” She tucks a lock of hair behind Rafaela's ear, “So what are we now?” 

“Does girlfriends work for you?” Raf smiles sheepishly up at her girlfriend(?). 

“Yeah, it does.” Joey presses a kiss to her forehead. 

Suddenly Rafaela sits up, dislodging Joey in the process and almost crashing their heads together. “I've got it!” 

“Got what?” Joey rubs the back of her head from where it collided with the wall. 

“My final project.” She already has the lamp on and a nice sheet of paper in front of her. Her pencil scratching away. 

After almost three hours Rafaela announces she's done, holding up the inked project. 

The interweaving lines forming a picture of a first kiss, a first love. The lines swirling into a portrait of the two, but it's so much more, it's love and safety, the journey and the destination. It's everything, but also one thing. A relationship made up of so many tiny moments and a single monumental one. It's a million curves and dips that match the ups and downs they've both been through. It's their story, made up of midnights and cups of coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> As always leave a comment to tell me what you thought, it will make my day!  
> You can find me on Tumblr @ad-astra-de-luna


End file.
